It has been a long while since I have written due to the fact that we moved from our forest retreat in Quebec to the Niagara region of Ontario and it has taken a while for me to adjust to the new environment and find my feet in our new community. But recently I attended the premier of a documentary called 'Threads' and I was inspired to write a piece about my reaction to the film. I wanted to share it with you. Here it is:
‘THREADS’ Documentary by Cathy Stevulak and Leonard
Hill
I
happened to be reading David Brooks’ recently published book ‘The Road to
Character’ when I was invited to attend the première of the documentary film
‘Threads’ at the Mosaic International South Asian Film Festival in Mississauga. This well-crafted 30-minute documentary,
produced by Cathy Stevulak and Leonard Hill, and directed by Cathy, chronicles
the life of Surayia Rahman, a Bangladeshi woman who, in Brooks’ words,
discovered her ‘core virtues’.
Like
any young person, she had a dream. She
was determined to become an artist. The
road would prove to be rocky, but her tenacity never failed her. She was married off at 17 and had three
children. When her husband fell ill, she
went to work and she became the breadwinner for the family. When her elder daughter died tragically, she
carried on. She seemed to understand
that her art, her work, would be the necessary means through which to grieve,
to heal and move forward.
Surayia
joined a social welfare organization, the Women’s Voluntary Association shop,
in Dhaka and worked as a staff artist. She
sketched and painted at home. She
experimented with many media including even painting with mud on fabric. She also created paintings inspired by the
effects of the embroidery stitches on the kantha quilts, the traditional
coverlets of Bangladesh and West Bengal made from the fabric of old saris,
pieced together and embellished with running stitch1.
Surayia’s
artistic skills were recognized and in 1982, along with a Canadian ex-patriate,
she co-founded the Skills Development for Underprivileged Women (SDUW) where
impoverished women could earn a living by stitching her designs. This association was to be short lived and in
1986, she was unexpectedly terminated.
Not to be discouraged, she continued working on her designs from her
home, a home that she had built from the proceeds of her previous years of hard
work. To her surprise, some of the women
with whom she had worked at SDUW sought her out and pleaded with her to
continue teaching them. It was at this
point, in her home, where Arshi (Bengali for ‘mirror’) was born. It had not been her goal to run her own
business, nor teach, but such a role was thrust upon her and she found that she
had an ability to foster the embroidery skills of the women who flocked to her
home. Surayia’s dream to create her own
original works, known as Nakshi Kantha or story quilts, was finally
realized. She drew her designs from
memories of the past, stories of her culture.
They were transferred on to silk and using many of the stitches used in
the traditional kantha quilts as well as introducing a fill-in stitch called
‘bhorat’2 the young women embroidered her stories. The finished pieces, having undergone Surayia’s
strict scrutiny, would be blocked, stretched and framed thereby moving the
embroideries from their historically functional role to that of a decorative
one. It was a visionary move by Surayia.
This move changed the discourse around her works from ‘craft’ to ‘art’, with,
as a consequence, the enhancement of their value. Her innovative style became known as ‘nakshi
kantha tapestry’.
Today,
Surayia’s work and that accomplished at SDUW and Arshi have found international
recognition and are exhibited around the world in private homes and museums. For the young women who worked with Surayia,
translating her designs into magnificent works of art, they learned a skill and
in the process they earned a living. In
addition, and maybe more importantly, they gained a community, a place to
share, a place to learn, a place where they played a significant role and all
of this engendered a sense of personal strength and empowerment.
I
believe that Surayia’s story is what Brooks is talking about in his book. She exemplifies those individuals that serve
as an example. She faced many of life’s
great tests and she was not found wanting.
I do not believe that this was the life that she would necessarily have
chosen at the outset, but it was the life that claimed her and she discovered
that she had the necessary mettle to take up the challenge and with joy and
satisfaction. It is a remarkable story
of ‘success’, not as defined in our current western terms, through material
values, but as Brooks defines as ‘living
in obedience to some transcendent truth, to have a cohesive inner soul that
honours creation and one’s own possibilities.’
Surayia
is now in her 80’s and her hands are no longer nimble. The women she has trained, and there are many,
have become her hands. In 2008, Surayia gave Arshi to the Salesian Sisters of
Dhaka. It is under this banner that
Surayia’s students, now accomplished embroiderers, carry on the work of Arshi. Thanks to Surayia, and the tenacity of
these young women, now skilled and working, that all lead autonomous lives,
able to care for their families, educate their children and walk with pride.
‘Threads’
is the story of a life at work, a success story of the most profound and
far-reaching quality. What is captured
on film, and what I loved most about it, is the harmonizing of an inner voice with
the outward actions. Early in the film,
there is a snapshot of Surayia as a young girl.
She has a beautiful, open face full of joy and optimism. The latter scenes of the film show Surayia in
her 80’s, and what catches your attention is that this luminosity still shines
forth. Brooks speaks about such people
as if ‘they radiate a sort of moral joy’. Surayia Rahman does, undeniably.
So,
if ‘Threads’ is being shown anywhere near where you live, go see it. You will be moved and inspired. Also, by extension, you will be supporting
the documentary film industry. Often,
and ‘Threads’ is no exception, the financing of these films is limited. So supporting the film, particularly through a donation, would show a
commitment to producers like Cathy and Len allowing them to continue to promote
the film and ensure its long life.
Kathryn
B. Borel
August
14, 2015
References : www.kanthathreads.com
‘The
Refining of a Domestic Art : Surayia Rahman. Niaz Zaman & Cathy Stevulak
‘Accidental
Saint’ by Bianca Diabase : Hand Eye
Magazine, March 4, 2010
‘The Road to
Character’ David Brooks, Random House 2015
‘A life at
work’ Thomas Moore, Broadway Books, 2008
1 Running stitch is a series of
continuous small stitches
2 Bhorat stitch is a filler stitch similar to Roumanian
stitch.
